Press Release, 13.04.2022

Photo by Novaya Gazeta.Europe

Chairman of the Yabloko party Nikolai Rybakov appealed to the Russian Minister of Internal Affairs, the Public Prosecutor General, and the heads of the Investigative Committee and the Department of Transport of the Ministry of Internal Affairs of Russia in connection with the attack on Dmitry Muratov, Editor-in-Chief of Novaya Gazeta, Nobel Peace Prize winner and member of the Yabloko party. Rybakov demanded that those involved in the attack be found and brought to justice.

Dmitry Muratov was attacked at the Kazansky railway station in Moscow on 7 April, 2022, at around 7:30 p.m. A man entered the train car, came into the compartment where Muratov was and doused him with red paint with acetone. The second person filmed what was happening through the car window on a mobile phone. On the same day, the information agency TASS, citing law enforcement agencies, reported that “transport police officers launched complex operational measures aimed at identifying both the men and detaining them. An investigation is underway and a procedural decision will be made on the basis of the results”. However a week after the attack, the perpetrators have still not been found.

“According to the information I have, despite the fact that the events took place in the very centre of Moscow, at a railway station equipped with numerous CCTV cameras, the attackers have not yet been identified and no criminal case has been initiated,” Rybakov noted.

The Chairman of Yabloko also drew the attention of law enforcement agencies to the need to study the journalistic investigation of this attack, published on the Novaya Gazeta website. In his opinion, the materials of the article can be useful in finding the perpetrators.